Yuletide Songwriting on Rise and Shine TV

Rise and Shine.tv is in the midst of a daily holiday songwriting project, and everyone is invited to help create the songs, via the Internet. The exercise in spontaneity and creativity is the brainchild of Dean Whitbread, co-founder of the UK Podcasters’ Association (and a talented songwriter and musician in his own right).

Rise and Shine is a live show, in which songwriters face the daily challenge of writing a song based on news and current events. The product of the day’s songwriting is later mixed and mastered, and syndicated as a podcast.

As I write this (Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008), I am watching Mike Turtle, a songwriter in Switzerland work via streaming video alongside a coffee-roaster in Minnesota, Dean in England, Christophe in Belgium, and nearly a dozen others via chat. They are writing a song (loosely) about Santa Claus and the broken undersea Internet cables.

Rise and Shine Yuletide Songwriting Festivities began several days ago, and run through Christmas Eve (24 December). Paraticipants gather at Rise and Shine TV/livestream or on the Mogulus streaming video site daily from 7pm to 10pm GMT (1pm – 4pm, Central US time).

The audience can pitch in via chat (on Mogulus), Twitter, Seesmic videos, Skype and email, with ideas or just encouragement. Encouragement of the songwriters is, um, encouraged, as writing an original topical song from scratch in under three hours is a sizeable project.

Rules and processes are explained on the Rise and Shine site here (at the bottom of the page).

In the holiday spirit, revenue from Yuletide songs will be donated to charity. According to the organizers, “as much as you give us, weâ€™ll give that away, along with as much festive musical originality as we possibly can come up with.”

Viewers (and prospective songwriters) can watch the process daily between 7pm and 10pm GMT. There will be no show December 22, however, as some of the Rise and Shine folks will be celebrating the Winter Solstice.

Later in the day, after the song is mixed and remastered, listeners can download the finished song as a podcast.